


Tuesday

by bjfic_archivist



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: Canon, Future
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-03-06
Updated: 2006-03-06
Packaged: 2018-12-27 14:40:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12083175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bjfic_archivist/pseuds/bjfic_archivist
Summary: There is no mad dashing, no flinging of arms, no movie-starlet kiss.  In the end itâ€™s a simple â€œHeyâ€� and quiet bone-crushing hug that let you know you are finally home.





	Tuesday

**Author's Note:**

> Note from IrishCaelan, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Brian/Justin Fanfiction Archive](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Brian_Justin_Fanfiction_Archive). To preserve the archive, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in September 2017. I posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Brian/Justin Fanfiction Archive collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/bjfic/profile).

  
Author's notes: This is my second publicly posted QaF fic. I started it over a month ago because I had a particular sentence flash in my brain and I had to write it down. It became this fic. I like it the way it is, as a one-shot, but I think I could maybe make it a series. I don't know. We'll see how it goes.

It's post-5.13 and takes place in the winter of 2013.  


* * *

Justin's POV

The day it happens is cold and gray and wholly unremarkable—a random Tuesday in late January. You are ready to come home.

It’s something you’ve been seriously grappling with for months, and merely contemplating for much longer-probably since the day you left. But the realization still manages to come with a certain amount of surprise. It’s like you’ve been trying to scratch this itch for seemingly forever, and now that you finally hit the right spot you can breathe a sigh of relief.

You originally left so you could “make it”, whatever the hell that means—and to this day you still don’t know. Soon though, it became about so much more. It was taking the independence you gained when you were in that craphole studio in Pittsburg and running with it wherever it took you in New York. Here, you have no safety net really. Sure, the friends you made here are great, and you know you will keep in touch with then when you leave—because it’s really only ever been a question of when for you. But here, for the first time, all you had was yourself, and while it was fucking scary as hell, it also felt damn good. For all Brian had taught you about being your own man, you never really put those skills to full use until you got here.

You came here wanting the answers to so many questions only to end up leaving with new and different questions you never even knew were out there.

*****

You hold your e-ticket boarding pass trying not to fold it into a tiny square—you’ve always had this urge to fold whatever scrap paper is within reach into whatever shapes. You like to keep your hands busy.

They finally call seating section 3 to board, and you join the herd of business travelers and the stray grandparent or two in the scraggly line. Brian would be appalled if he knew you were flying economy, but you couldn’t care less. You can afford to buy a plane ticket home, so you’re damn well going to do it. Besides, you’ve never had the issues about legroom Brian would complain endlessly about—one of the few benefits of being slightly shorter than average.

Sitting in your window seat (hey, you may be in the cattle car, but your going to at least have some kind of view), the déjà vu hits. All those years ago, you took a late evening economy class flight filled mostly with the Geritol and Old Spice sets to a place you had only ever been to once—and not even for a full day. And here you are on another late evening economy class flight, the same faceless traveling companions, but the destination is far from uncertain. You’re finally going home.

You haven’t had this feeling since you were seventeen. Sure there was Deb’s, and Daph’s, and Brian’s (on several different occasions), and even Ethan’s rathole of an apartment for six months. But at Deb’s, you were in Michael’s old room—a fact he would have kept on mentioning until his dying breath. And both Ethan’s and Daph’s never felt like yours at all. And Brian’s, well, even when you officially lived there you could never shake the feeling that you were inhabiting Brian’s space rather than living in a shared space. Even your apartment in New York never really felt like a home—this was mostly your own doing when you first got it because you didn’t want to feel comfortable there. Because that would mean Pittsburg wouldn’t be your home anymore—retarded, yes, but there you go. Years ago, Daphne told you this could be also be attributed to the fact that you hadn’t had a stable permanent home since you were seventeen and therefore were conditioned to be able to pack up at a moment’s notice whenever circumstances changed—which was always sooner rather than later. You, of course, laughed and told her that was a crock of shit and that she needed to lay off the psychology courses in med school.

Now, nearing your 30th birthday, it doesn’t seem so laughable. 

*****

You know he’ll be there waiting for you. When you talked earlier, he said maybe, but you could tell it was a “yes” maybe and not a “no” maybe—years of becoming fluent in Kinney-speak taught you such minute distinctions. It’s a big part of what helped both of you get through all of these years of e-mails, phone conversations, and visits that ended almost as soon as they began. 

Your walk through the concourse ends much faster than you expect and soon you can spot Brian’s artfully mussed hair. He turns his head slightly and catches your eye. He quirks his left eyebrow a bit at you; you respond in kind. It takes all of your willpower not to get all smiley and dewy-eyed like a teenage girl-you’re mostly unsuccessful. You see Brian dip his head for a second and when it comes back up, you notice he’s biting the corner of his mouth trying to stifle a smile—because God forbid anyone anywhere see Brian emote in public in any fashion. You know you busted each other, and you can tell a laugh escapes Brian’s lips. An entire conversation with no words and dozens of people in between you. It comforts you more than you think possible that you two can still do that after all this time, that when it’s just you and Brian words are superfluous.

There is no mad dashing, no flinging of arms, no movie-starlet kiss. In the end it’s a simple “Hey” and quiet bone-crushing hug that let you know you are finally home.

*****  
Brian's POV

The day Justin calls you is an ordinary, hectic, make-you-go-prematurely-gray kind of day. You feel your cell vibrating in your pocket, but you ignore it since you’re in the middle of tearing Ryan from the art department a new asshole for doing a sepia-toned effect on the Endovir mock-ups instead of black-and-white like you had specifically asked for. Now Katzner over at Remsen is getting antsy, and he’s anal enough on his best day. As you stride purposefully back to your office (putting someone in their place always puts a spring in your step), you take out your phone to see you have one missed call from Justin.

You play it expecting to hear him giving you the details of when his next show is or just hear him pestering you about whatever. What you get is something that makes you sit in the nearest chair.

It’s short, even by your normally terse standards: “Hey, it’s me. I, uh, just wanted to let you know…I’m ready. So yeah, call me when you get this.”

You can supply the missing words—you know what this means, what he wants, what you want. It takes all of your self-control to not call him back right then and demand he take the next flight out. Instead, you make yourself wait until you get home—this isn’t the kind of conversation you want to have at the office or battling your way through evening traffic. 

*****

After dinner—and a couple of shots of Beam—you settle yourself into your favorite black leather armchair and take your cell phone out of your pocket. You flip it open and scroll down to Justin’s name in your phone book, staring at his name for a second before you hit “Send”. You’ve waited a long time to have this conversation—sometimes it felt like you would never get here. But you held on, both of you, because even though the months and years felt like they were stretching into infinity you both knew you would get here eventually. After indulging yourself in these thoughts for a second, you proceed to call Justin and tell him to get his hot blond boy ass on a plane home. 

“Ever the romantic,” he chuckles into the phone. He tells you he booked his flight for February 7 and that it arrives in the Pitts at 9:47 PM. You try and temper your enthusiasm just a tiny bit by saying you’ll “maybe” pick him up—hey, you might have some important Kinnetic-related matter to attend to. He’s a big boy; he can take a cab if he needs to. He just laughs you off and tells you to meet him on the other side of the security checkpoint. It seems there is no force on this earth that can temper his impetuousness by this point—and you wouldn’t want it any other way.

*****

You get to the airport at exactly 9:29 PM. You know because you spent the entire trip over in the car gritting your teeth and glancing between the stop-and-go traffic on the highway and the little obnoxious digital green clock display in your dashboard. You walk with, as Justin has deemed it, “casual importance” through the terminal to the bank of arrivals monitors. Satisfied that his flight is still on time—a few minutes early, even—you scope out the area for a place to wait.

It seems like just a few seconds from the time you lean against a pillar to when you catch his eyes—his startlingly piercing blue eyes. He’s striding through the crowd like they’re not even there. In truth, you’re a bit offended by their presence since it means you can’t bend him over the information desk right there and give him a proper “welcome home”. Delicate sensibilities and all that—theirs, not yours. 

You keep your eyes locked as he wends his way through the faceless hoard, and you gather him up in a bone-crushing hug as soon as he’s within arm’s reach. You hear a thud as he drops his messenger bag directly on your left foot so he can snake his arms around your waist. You run your fingers through his still-ridiculously-soft blond hair and breathe “Hey” into his ear, and you feel his smile in the crook of your neck as he responds in kind. Now you know he’s finally really home.


End file.
